


An Invitation

by Irmingarde



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Johnlock Gift Exchange, M/M, Magical Realism, Mind Palace, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1195398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irmingarde/pseuds/Irmingarde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Johnlockchallenges Valentine Gift Exchange. Pluph's prompt was “John finds a door into Sherlock’s Mind Palace. With Valentines Day coming up, he decides to do something special.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Invitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pluph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pluph/gifts).



 

            As most dreams begin somewhere in the middle, John knew immediately he was not having an ordinary dream. The moment his eyes were shut, he found himself in the lobby of a grand building.  There was warm light radiating through the place that seemed to exist without a source and made it difficult to see the edges of the room. Rich hardwood floors and marble columns culminated in an intimidating double door before him. _I am asleep,_ his mind supplied unhelpfully, and he waited for the inevitable pull back to reality he had experienced in the handful of lucid dreams he’d ever had.

            When this did not come, John considered the doors thoughtfully. There was a large padlock barring them together. Licking his lips and glancing across the room, at least what he could see of it, he slipped his hands into his pockets. Immediately, the fingers of his left hand curled around a metal key, seemingly already warmed. _Right, okay, I’m meant to open it._ John approached the padlock with determination, drawn to it more and more the closer he came. In a swift move, he inserted the key and turned it, the padlock and its chain falling to the floor with a loud thud.

            Inside was a corridor, with high arched ceilings and dark wooden paneling. The eerie, unnatural light permeated the whole place, becoming more intense as it went further down the hall. A weak but warm scent wafted around him, and somewhere John could hear the faintest vibrations of classical music. _I’ve been here before._

He stepped to the right, towards the first door. Above it, a sign read **INFANCY – NON-CONTEXTUAL SENSATIONS.** John turned around to face the opposite door, **MODERN ENGLISH VARIATIONS AND ACCENTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND IRELAND.** As he continued down the corridor, the doors made less and less sense to him, and he felt a strange uneasiness, as though it was overstepping some boundary to open any of them **.** He had started to suspect that this was not his dream, but somebody else’s.

            Every once in a while, there would be a door with no sign or marker. These especially gave off an air of unease, as though they contained some frightened animal that would attack if provoked. John stopped, turning his head back to the door he had just read but not processed quite as quickly: **MYCROFT, PRE-UNIVERSITY.** The door stood out from most others he had seen thus far, painted a dull red that had no doubt once been vibrant, now cracked and chipped. Reaching out his hand, John grasped the knob. Carefully, ever so carefully, he turned it, realization creeping up on him that he could not yet fully accept.

            The room was ridiculously neat, which at first disguised the fact that it belonged to a child. As John’s eyes took it in, he forgot the corridor behind him. The two impossible windows faced out to a green field, the morning light streaming in through white curtains. Details, then. A wooden bed with a green and blue quilt neatly made. There was a bookshelf, packed full but organized, the volumes entirely nonfiction in nature. Then were the little things that gave it away: the size of the wardrobe, the cheerful blue carpet, the crayon drawing framed and hanging above the desk. John approached this, eyes drawn to the only sentimental object he could seem to find. _Oh my god._

The drawing showed two figures, obviously carefully drawn but lacking real understanding of form. One was dressed in deep red, a curl of orange hair peaking out from a black trihorn hat, the other in stripes with an eye patch. Both had long blue swords with yellow handles, a single palm tree added to the background. Under the drawing, scrawled in messy handwriting that contrasted with the attention paid to the crayon figures, John read: _To Mycroft, from Sherlock – 1982._

Sherlock, age five, drawing his brother and himself. Mycroft would have been twelve.  John breathed steadily, acceptance overpowering incredulity. He knew where he was, even if it he didn’t understand how he had gotten there.

 

“Don’t make so many assumptions, you need to look at the evidence first.” A shrill version of a familiar voice said quietly behind him.

 

            John turned to face the version of Mycroft who stayed here, wondering if he could see him too. Then there was nothing, just hazy light falling into 221b.

 

***

 

            “How old was Mycroft when he went to University?” John asked over breakfast.

 

            “Mummy made him wait a few years more than necessary, was worried about him feeding himself.”

 

            “So...”

 

            “He was fourteen.”

 

***

 

It didn’t happen every night, or in any discernable pattern he could observe. Sometimes, between cases and the details of every day, he would simply fall asleep, sometimes with his lover beside him though mostly not, and John would appear again before those huge doors, key in hand.  He was careful, reverent even, looking only for the doors that called to him. There were rules to this sort of thing, he discovered over time. He could will things with him, for instance. His own memories, with enough concentration, were real and malleable here. A little tidying in the **BASIC ETIQUETTE** room, or some innocent insertions to the Astronomy shelf of the **NATURAL SCIENCES LIBRARY,** a very impressive space indeed. He learned the different floors, which doors were easily opened, which took coaxing, and which contained memories not willing to be seen. These, John suspected, Sherlock kept away from even himself. 

            The only problem, John thought as he lay awake, was the one thing he hadn’t thought would be missing. No matter how far he ventured, how many doors he passed or stairwells he climbed, John had never found himself. No **JOHN WATSON** **WING,** he joked internally, not even a **JOHN WATSON** **BROCHURE** to be found. There was a room with a sign marked **RELATIONS,** locked, and one marked **OF PARTICULAR NOTE,** which he discovered contained Molly, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, the Woman, and a handsome young man with ginger hair whom John had never seen before. The not quite humans stood around, smiling, seemingly in utero. Each held a large book to their chests, which John suspected contained personal information and memories. People of note, who John knew Sherlock had affection for, if he couldn’t admit as much to himself. These were the people who Sherlock let himself care about, who he could count on to care about him. Was it actually unrealistic of him to have assumed he would have his own special place in the memory palace?

            He examined the young man, who stared easily into the distance, unseeing and unmoving, waiting for some cue to function. What did it mean that he was missing? The person Sherlock lived with, and worked with, and on some rare occasions kissed awake because it was “efficient”. He could feel the anger rising in his throat and turned away, quite finished with the evidence in front of him. He couldn’t help that he was here, and he couldn’t lie to himself about the desire to know, and so he couldn’t become upset with what he found.

 

***

 

            Before John found himself, he found Sherlock. Finding Sherlock had never occurred to him. Sherlock was sleeping; this was all happening inside of him, so why should he appear here in person? Strolling down now familiar hallways, past all sorts of doors, some open and some not, John caught the end of a melody, usually evasive. Turning, he noticed for the first time a small space between the walls in the corner. There was another corridor, unlit, long, and extremely narrow, leading to a single door. John followed the music, his curiosity peaked. He pushed at the unassuming door, the rich grain of which seemed particularly sensual to his hand.

            _Well that can’t be right_ , John furrowed his brow. He had entered the flat. The lamplight was warm, helped by the healthy glow of the fire kindling across the room. The sky was dark outside the tall windows, and the sweet smell he had stopped wondering about weeks ago surrounded him in a strong cloud. The music, though...The music was still coming in sensuous melodies down the hall, apparently from Sherlock’s bedroom. Nearly forgetting he was still in the mind palace and not just awake at home, John ventured forward.

            Sherlock was playing at the foot of his bed, dressed in pajamas and a blue silk dressing gown. He stopped abruptly and spun on his feet as John entered the doorway.

 

            “I was wondering where you’d gone off to.” He said.

 

            John blanched, having never been acknowledged before by any of the other uncanny apparitions of memories. But...this was Sherlock’s mind palace, and this was Sherlock’s room, so maybe if he was asleep, this was Sherlock’s dream too.

 

            “Where...where do I normally go?” John ventured.

 

            Sherlock looked at him carefully.

 

            “I can’t exactly stop you from moving about. Not for lack of trying.” He ended with disdain, turning back and moving to begin playing once more.

 

            “Sher, what do you mean?” He must have been referring to the John who was like the others, the John of Sherlock’s memory.

 

            A long-suffering sigh.

 

            “I have to keep you here, John. It’s getting too messy...too easy for things to move. Ever since the corridor...” Sherlock looked at John carefully, his face staggeringly unguarded. Why would it be, in his own dream?

 

            “John, what am I?”

 

            Taken aback, John took a moment to answer. The words came easily, the exact thing he was meant to say, the right memory called back.

 

            “Amazing. Brilliant. Fantastic.”

           

***

 

John considered the previous night over in his head, the steaming cup slowly cooling in his hands. So Sherlock stayed in the flat when he slept, had it tucked away, difficult to find, dark and warm and full of baking smells and music. He loved the flat, that bit was easy enough. It made sense that that would be where he felt the most comfortable.

The difficult bit came next. The flat was where he kept John, as well. In the memory palace, John was a part of 221b, a part of Sherlock’s home. They had always been flatmates, yes, but Sherlock had been looking for him...had said something about things getting too messy...

John knew Sherlock cared about him, knew he was an exception in so many ways. To think, however...to entertain the idea after trying to accept the opposite for such a long time.

           

Then it hit him.

 

The corridor, the sprawling hallways of the place, he had been there before. He knew that place, knew it but hadn’t noticed. There had been more important things to observe at the time, after all. The entire palace was built in the college where he’d shot the cabbie, on their very first case. John hadn’t found himself because...well, he was everywhere. He had been doing what he’d always done there, moving and changing and building what Sherlock had constructed before. Sherlock tried to keep him at home, in their home, and what did it mean that he could have such an effect, such power there, beyond Sherlock’s will? _What a romantic bastard. He probably was planning never to tell me. Perfect timing, too._

_***_

 

“John?!”

 

John turned to face him, standing at the table between the windows, which were closed to the moonlight outside. He smiled wide. The room was dark save for the single lamp by the sofa and the warm glow of the fireplace. There was takeout on the table, the warm, sweet smell permeating the whole flat, with a single candlestick lit in the center.

 

“Good, you’re on time. “

 

“You said you were in danger.”

 

“You’ve pulled that trick on me plenty of times, I figured I had a freebie.”

 

Sherlock assessed him, and John allowed it, standing comfortably in his red jumper and slacks, slippers on and hair combed to the side.  Sherlock groaned.

 

“Really, John? Of all the sentimental drivel. A Valentine’s Day dinner.”

 

“A date, actually. A real one.”

 

“We aren’t-“

 

“That’s a shame, isn’t it?”

 

Quieted, Sherlock watched him, waiting for John to elaborate.

 

“I didn’t know what this was...didn’t want to push it. I was fine with how things have been between us, it’s been good, is good, until... well, I wasn’t.” Licking his lips, John pressed forward.  “So, if you’ll indulge me, I wanted to say it. Just once, if you prefer, or always. Just to...acknowledge it. So...a little romance, a little indulgence, for me.”

 

After a long moment, Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed, but took off his coat just the same.

 

 

***

 

With a sprawled pile of consulting detective in his arms, John settled into bed and closed his eyes, the smile he’d worn all evening still etched onto his face. He walked along the corridor that was Sherlock’s mind palace, the one that had brought them together, that had changed them both so much. He found what he was looking for soon enough, that small opening, the long dark corridor to the sweet smell of spices. Pushing the door open easily, he let himself in and smiled wide at what he saw. The flat as it he’d first seen it here, as he had tried to replicate it in real life. Only now, to his great delight, there was the added detail of a candle to the table. 


End file.
